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Button blasts Sauber pair

An angry Jenson Button has told Sky Sports F1 how unhappy he is with the driving standards of both Sauber drivers after being eliminated on the first lap in Korea.

By William Esler

Last Updated: 14/10/12 12:49pm

An angry Jenson Button has criticised his rivals' driving standards after being punted out of the Korean GP by an "idiotic" move by Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi.

Starting from 11th on the grid on the harder of the two compound tyres, the McLaren driver made a good start but was tagged by future team-mate Sergio Perez at turn one, before suffering terminal damage when Kobayashi ran into the back of his MP4-27 in the braking zone for turn 3.

"Then Perez came from nowhere, dived up the inside and hit the car in front. So I had to move out of the way - it was too late really to make that move as it proved when he hit the car in front.

"And then going down the back-straight, I was having a good little drag race with Nico Rosberg, then suddenly I felt a big bang on the right hand side and Kamui flying past. It is pretty poor driving standards considering this is the pinnacle of motorsport and it is such a long race.

"These guys are going round having fun out there and fighting for points - the race is not two corners long and some people need to learn that and whether they will ever learn that we will see."

"I don't think so. You wipe out two cars that have a very good chance of scoring points..." he added.

Sky Sports F1 pundit Martin Brundle agreed with Button that Kobayashi was reckless at the start, adding that a stop-and-go penalty would have been a more appropriate penalty.

"There are a number of penalties available to the stewards and they decided to give him a drive through rather than a stop-and-go, which surprised me as I thought they should have been a bit more severe," the co-commentator said.

"He obviously got pincered between the Mercedes and the McLaren but it looked pretty reckless and it is just not good enough. You know when you get down to turn three at 200 mph on the first lap you will have 160 kilos of fuel on board, your tyres are cold your brakes are cold - you have to make an allowance. You cannot go steaming in like that."